[DelusionsDaily]

Anyone else feel more invalidated by family and friends when depressed? Anyone else overly sensitive to possible invalidation when depressed?
I think I am right now and i am in a severe depression. Wondered if anyone else experiences it.

[Keegan2015]

What do you mean by "invalidation"? Like, people don't acknowledge / take your depression seriously?

[ComfortablyNumb5]

I quite often get this from my bf who lives with me. He will never understand why I'm not out of bed and doing stuff. He says I'm procrastinating which I do often when I'm hypo or depressed. I let a bill go and the cable got turned off. I was to blame because I'm just being "lazy" and forgot about it. You're not alone here. I gave up a long time ago at trying to get anyone to take my MI's seriously or believe they're real at all. All I want at the end of the day is a slice of compassion ya know?

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[DelusionsDaily]

I had a friend who is training to be a social worker I was with who said "we just need to get you some(sex)." And a friend in AA whose sister is bipolar who told me "you just need to get out of yourself." Ugh! Like either of those are truly helpful. I feel like they were mocking the severity of my situation. Just annoyed with both and perplexed by my friend who is applying social work masters program.

[Melmo]

I had my mom once ask me what I was so depressed about. Also years before I was ever diagnosed with depression, she said I needed to get laid because I was so moody. I was 18.

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[hopeless2015]

Yes, I often feel like no one understands the severity, I've ended up inpatient 3 times in the last year with severe depression I didn't do that for the heck of it!

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[jacky8807]

I have learned to accept other ppl will never understand. My mother has seen me manic/suicidal like, and everything in between and she still dosent truly believe it. Or rather dosent want to.

[violetgreen]

Yes! I'm not on medical leave for nothing, or downsizing from a full-time teaching job to 2 easier part-time job just for the fun of it. I don't have a reset button to go back to a pre-mi time!

[DelusionsDaily]

Originally Posted by jacky8807

I have learned to accept other ppl will never understand. My mother has seen me manic/suicidal like, and everything in between and she still dosent truly believe it. Or rather dosent want to.

I can accept that people dont understand MI but it's in their speaking that they shove their foot down their own throats that I have a hard time. If you dont understand dont speak about it instead of constantly speaking and covering it by saying you dont understand. Ignorant ***** people! Cant stand that s***.

[1278]

Originally Posted by jacky8807

I have learned to accept other ppl will never understand. My mother has seen me manic/suicidal like, and everything in between and she still dosent truly believe it. Or rather dosent want to.

Same with my parents, they try to understand, but I guess they're human too and when I get aggressive and irritable I know which buttons to push to make them lose their temper.

[Wanderlust90]

I am constantly told to stop using the term mental illness because I'm not mentally ill, just a little depressed & that doesn't count. Neither my family or partner believe bipolar at all, they still believe "real bipolar" means full blown psychotic mania. I can't blame them because before I was dx that's exactly what I thought & I'm a nurse!

So they think the meds make me worse & are unnecessary, they tell me I just need to figure out what kind of work would make me happy & I'll be fine. I point out the free floating anxiety, bouts of severe agitation & self harm with suicidal ideation, the auditory hallucinations, the bouts of apathetic depression where I just want sleep & barely speak. They say we all go through stuff like that, it's like I've managed to continue to achieve so there couldn't possibly be anything wrong. I had a 3 year crystal meth habit that my parents never noticed regardless of the fact that I still lived at home for half of that time & started looking like death. But I got a degree & brought a home. Anyway I'm off topic now, but I totally empathise, we have to continue to suffer with their misinformed well doing ********.

[Icare dixit]

Originally Posted by violetgreen

Yes! I'm not on medical leave for nothing, or downsizing from a full-time teaching job to 2 easier part-time job just for the fun of it. I don't have a reset button to go back to a pre-mi time!

Right on! In my experience, just showing them what the functional impairment due to BP has done over the years, the missed and messed-up chances, the effort put in compared to the things you achieved, it far more convincing than to keep making the point that mental illness, BP, a mental disorder is real. Admitting there is a problem is at least a first step towards acceptance. And some people just don't like the labels or psychiatry. I can relate to that viewpoint certainly to a rather large extent. Heck, we often don't like them or really believe in them.

A good, similar, approach might also be to not emphasise your own opinion on the matter but just state the fact that you receive treatment, got diagnosed, and that they do that for a reason.